Tim Larew: Watching the Legacy Form

Tim Larew has become a key figure in the Boston rap scene. Not only has he been instrumental in the come up of artists like Cousin Stizz and Michael Christmas, but he helped greatly in popularizing the scene as a whole.

For background, Larew is from the suburbs of Connecticut. Coming to Boston to attend BU, he was very involved in the local hip-hop scene early and saw something special in it before a lot of people even had a vision of what it could become. With his blog, The Fresh Heir, and help from some friends at BU, he started to meet people in the scene and eventually hosted 12-For-12 Freestyles with different artists to connect everyone. Around the time, he actually scheduled Chance the Rapper’s first Boston show at BU before he was very big at all (and look how that turned out…). Larew now manages Michael Christmas, Cousin Stizz, OG Swaggerdick, Big Leano and Cam Meekins along with writing for Pigeons & Planes on occasion.

The reason I am writing this article is because of the legacy that Tim Larew is forming right in front of our eyes. Not only is he a go-to-guy for management in Boston right now, but he’s known by everyone and has become a legend in the city. Larew went from helping Michael Christmas set up basement shows to helping him prepare for national tours with Logic, Mac Miller, and more. He has gone from watching Cousin Stizz freestyle for the 12-For-12 Freestyles to leading him into studio sessions with A$AP Mob members, Rick Rubin, and more, along with executive producing one of the most critically acclaimed projects of 2016 in Stizz’s MONDA. The list goes on and on.

Without a doubt, when people look back on the history of how the whole Boston rap scene grew and became more relevant, Larew’s name will come up as one of the key players in it all. Connecting with so many people and always being open to hearing what people think is next up, he is only becoming more known as time goes on. He’s surely an extremely hard worker, and it has paid off. Scrolling through my Instagram and Twitter feeds, I see Michael Christmas doing a Burger King ad, Big Leano’s follower count growing by the day and Tales From The Mud racking up thousands of plays on Soundcloud, Cousin Stizz in the studio with names like Aminè and Chance the Rapper, and even more. By trusting the people he works with and having a real love for what he does, Larew is a force in the music industry. As he travels all around the U.S. for different business events and meetings, he has been able to keep a hand in Boston, right where everything has started and still have such an impact without being here at the moment.

As 2017 goes on, I’m sure that Tim Larew will be very busy. He’s been going hard for a minute now, but it seems like Boston is really entering a new level with the names cosigning people from the city. I don’t know what the next moves will be for Stizz, Leano, or anyone else, but I do know that we can be confident that Tim Larew will make sure that everything delivered will be huge.